Millions of telephone calls are placed from United States prisons each week, and collecting money for those phone calls can be challenging for companies that operate prison phone systems. One way that inmates are typically allowed to pay for phone calls is by placing collect phone calls. In a typical calling scenario, to place a collect phone call, an inmate identifies himself or herself (typically by a personal identification number (PIN) and perhaps also through biometric identification), and then enters the phone number to which a collect call is to be placed. Provided the system is programmed to allow that inmate to call that number, a call is placed, and an automated voice response system in the prison phone system enunciates a voice query, asking if a collect call from the inmate will be accepted. If the call recipient accepts the collect call, the inmate is connected to the called party.
There are two problems with using the established telephone company collect call billing methods as revenue collecting methods for phone calls placed from prisons. The first problem is that compared to calls placed by an average cross-section of the public, a much higher percentage of inmate phone calls are made to persons who are financially irresponsible. It is not uncommon for an inmate to place a month worth of collect phone calls to an individual, and for that individual to cancel his or her phone service, switch to a different phone provider, and not pay his or her bill for the collect calls. In such a case, the company operating the prison phone system winds up unable to collect funds for those phone calls. There is a need for innovative billing systems which allow companies which operate prison phone systems to collect revenues for a higher percentage of phone calls placed by inmates.
Because the probability of uncollectible funds is higher in the beginning when no collection record has been established with a particular called party, some prison phone systems limit the monthly dollar volume of collect phone calls to a particular number until a payment history has been established. There is a need for innovative revenue collection systems which do not necessitate limiting collectable revenues by limiting calling time.
A further problem with using existing collect-call billing systems to collect revenues for phone calls placed by inmates is that a growing number of phone calls placed by inmates are to cell phones, and cell phone companies do not offer collect call revenue collection services. Thus, telephone calls from inmates to cell phones cannot be placed as collect calls.
Prison phone system providers such as Securus Technologies have developed billing systems which allow credit-card-billed accounts to be set up which can be used as a source of funds for inmate phone calls. Thus a family member of an inmate can fund phone calls that the inmate makes, including phone calls to cell phones. The average collectability of charges for phone calls made with such a billing system has been shown to be substantially higher than the average collectability of collect phone calls placed by inmates (typical 10% bad debt for collect calls vs. 1% bad debt for pre-paid calls). In addition, the funds collected through such a system are subject to only the typical 2% transaction fees of credit card companies, rather than the typical 5% to 7% transaction fees charged by phone companies for collecting collect-call revenues.
In order to facilitate inmates placing phone calls to persons who are only (or primarily) reachable by cell phone, prison phone systems available from Securus Technologies allow inmates to place a limited number of brief free phone calls to cell phone numbers (which cannot accept collect calls). An automated voice message is played to the call recipient, encouraging the call recipient to stay on the line after the free inmate call ends, to sign up for a credit-card-funded account which the calling inmate can used to fund future calls to that cell phone number.
There is a need for innovative methods and apparatus which facilitate prison phone service providers collecting a higher percentage of billable revenues, and paying lower transaction fees.